Willard Van Orman Quine Quotes

Confusion of sign and object is original sin coeval with the word.
Willard Van Orman Quine

It is one of the consolations of philosophy that the benefit of showing how to dispense with a concept does not hinge on dispensing with it.
Willard Van Orman Quine

Language is a social art.
Willard Van Orman Quine

Language is conceived in sin and science is its redemption.
Willard Van Orman Quine

Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word.
Willard Van Orman Quine

One man's observation is another man's closed book or flight of fancy.
Willard Van Orman Quine

'Ouch' is not independent of social training. One has only to prick a foreigner to appreciate that it is an English word.
Willard Van Orman Quine

Physics investigates the essential nature of the world, and biology describes a local bump. Psychology, human psychology, describes a bump on the bump.
Willard Van Orman Quine

The familiar material objects may not be all that is real, but they are admirable examples.
Willard Van Orman Quine

To be is to be the value of a variable.
Willard Van Orman Quine

Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.
Willard Van Orman Quine

We do not learn first what to talk about and then what to say about it.
Willard Van Orman Quine